(37) So Sennacherib . . .--We have to remember that the Assyrian king had been engaged in the siege of Libnah, probably also in an Egyptian expedition, which from some cause or other was unsuccessful. The course of events was probably this: that in Egypt he heard of the ravages of the pestilence, returned to find his army too weak to fight, and then, abandoning all further action in the south, withdrew to Nineveh.

Departed, and went and returned.--We are reminded by the three synonyms of the proverbial "abiit, evasit, erupit" of Cicero, in Catil. ii. (Del.).

Verse 37. - So Sennacherib... departed; rather, broke up his camp. The word used for all the removals of the children of Israel in the wilderness (Numbers 33:3-48). The loss of even an entire corps d'armeee would not have caused an Assyrian king, at the head of an intact main army, to break up his camp and abandon his enterprise. And dwelt at Nineveh. Sennacherib lived some eighteen or twenty years from the probable date of his discomfiture, dying in B.C. 681. His ordinary residence was at Nineveh, which he greatly adorned and beautified ('Records of the Past,' vol. 11. pp. 55-57). His father, Sargon, on the contrary, dwelt commonly at Khorsabad (Dur-Sargina), and his son, Esarhaddon, dwelt, during the latter part of his reign, at Babylon. We must not suppose, however, that Sennacherib was shut up in Nineveh during the remainder of his life. On the contrary, he made frequent expeditions towards the south, the east, and the north. But he made no farther expedition to the south-west, no further attack on Jerusalem, or attempt on Egypt. The Jews had peace, so far as the Assyrians were concerned, from the event related in ver. 36 to a late date in the reign of Esarhaddon.

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went, and returned,.... Being informed of the destruction of his army in this miraculous manner, he departed from the place where he was in all haste, fearing lest he himself should be destroyed in like manner; and having no forces to pursue his designs, or wherewith to make an attempt elsewhere, he made the best of his way at once into his own country, whither he returned with great shame and confusion:

and dwelt at Nineveh; the metropolis of his kingdom; see Genesis 10:11.